


Wilderness

by fajrdrako



Category: Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:28:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21809551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fajrdrako/pseuds/fajrdrako
Summary: Alice Munro is taken from her old familiar home to a violent wilderness, where she finds something better than she ever knew before.
Relationships: Alice Munro/Uncas
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Wilderness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadow_Logic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_Logic/gifts).



When I was a child in England, I never thought about wilderness, here at home or in the colonies. Though I knew the word, I had never, in truth, imagined its full meaning. It was not in the scope of my comfortable existence. It cropped up in the stories Old Nan used to tell, with me snuggled in my warm bed, wide-eyed with the delight of being frightened in the utmost safety. While a warm fire glowed in my hearth, I listened to old tales in which dark, threatening forests trapped travellers who would never leave them, who could never leave however much they struggled, caught in the bonds of evil magic. Paths were mysterious natural labyrinths in unnatural patterns. In these tales there were forests which had a way in, but no way out. 

Call it a metaphor for life.

Much as I loved the darkness of these stories, I preferred sunnier themes, in which poor, beautiful girls married princes, while homeless, resourceful boys fought giants and found treasure. I quite fancied myself as a princess, instead of a rather ordinary girl whose father was a soldier away in the wars. Our home was rather fine, since we lived with our mother's brother, and I liked to imagine myself in a place finer still. I was adventurous and pampered there. I would dance on the lawn, barefoot, pretending I was at a fairy ball. I had imaginary couriers and gallant soldiers at my beck and call.

This made my older sister Cora laugh. Many things made Cora laugh, in those days, including my misbehaviour. I was the youngest child, and indulged. When father came home, everyone said, I would have to behave. Meanwhile - I would dance.

Then father came home, he was laughing and loving, and would swing me up in the air and catch me in his arms. He brought me a box made by savages, made of birch bark and porcupine quills, and I thought it the finest treasure ever. A glimpse of a foreign world. He told me about the cities he knew there - Indian towns of tents and beadwork, English towns like Boston and Plymouth and New York. When he talked of the Indians, I thought of Maharajas in domed palaces with tassled elephants. I had little sense of world geography.

Of necessity, this changed as I grew. My brothers James and Edward followed father into the army, and then, as soon as he was old enough, George signed up, too. Mother wept, which confused me. George looked so heroic, going off in uniform to fight the enemies of England. French? Dutch? Hurons? I was unclear who they were. "Mama?" I took her hand. "Aren't you happy for him?"

She gave my hand a squeeze. "My boys," she said. "Growing up too fast."

Perhaps she sensed something of the future, since George was the first of my brothers to die, two years later. We all wept, and wore black, and agreed he had died too young. It was a reason to hate the French, if we needed reasons. (It was enough, that they were our enemies.) I kept one of George's brass buttons in my birch-bark box. I knew the difference now between the Hindus and the savages of the American forests. They seemed equally far away.

I got a letter from James. "My dear little sister, you would love the flowers here this time of year. I have never seen anything like the majestic beauty of this place." I wondered how anything could be more beautiful than England. 

I wished he could come home and tell me about it. He was my favourite brother. But as war broke out - the same war as before? Another one? - he could not leave, and found less time still to write to a distant sister. I started to pay attention to what was happening to our country, and others. A war war raging in Europe, and in America. The French, the Germans, the Hurons, the Iroquois. I wished I were a man, so I could fight for my country. Thinking it over, I was glad I was not. 

Then suddenly things happened very fast. Our beautiful house was closed up, the servants sent away, and we sailed across the ocean to the beautiful wilderness I had only heard about. I wept saying good-bye to Old Nan. "I'll never see you again," I sobbed, and she answered, "In heaven, child. In heaven."

I was humiliatingly sick on the ship, but I was not the only one. Cora was never sick. She was magnificent. My mother, who was as miserable as I was, murmured, "I can do this. I must do this." I knew she too was homesick and frightened, but we were going to see father, and I was going to to see the land James so admired. 

I did not dream of sailing, even while on the ship. I dreamed of dark, thick forests in which the wind whistled and the birds were silent. It was a timeless place between dread and hope. The creaking of the ship and the wind in the forested hills became confused in my mind. 

Then there was Boston, followed by New York. New faces, a world both different and similar to the one we left. Father met us there, and we went together to Albany. Before we left, he had sad news to share with us. "I have received word that James has died at Oswego. He was gravely wounded in an attack by the French and the Algonkians. He died a hero's death."

We wept, but James' death gave me courage and purpose to me, and it seemed to do so for Cora as well. Mother chose to stay back with friends in New York, but Cora and I followed father to Albany, not being given a choice in the matter. We knew that other people too had lost brothers, sons and friends, at Oswego and other forts. We nursed the survivors and helped with the non-military business that arose. Cora acted as nurse in the infirmary, head cook in the kitchens, quartermaster in the stockroom, and secretary in the offices. I was her assistant in all things. She became a translator as necessary - we did not know the native languages, but her French was like music, always far better than mine. The soldiers adored her, especially Major Duncan Heyward.

There was so much to do, all of the time. We insulated ourselves from our worries by working. I would lie in my bed at night, too exhausted to sleep, wondering about the wilderness around us. We could not wander far, for fear of animals, savages, and the French. We believed that when the war ended, life would become easier. Father said he was proud of us. Mother, when she wrote, said very little about anything. Father was put in charge of Fort William Henry, which was an honour. When he was established there, he would send for us.

England was very far away. The war in Europe was even further. Fort Albany was a bustling and busy place - a fort, a town, a crossroads - but I had the sense that outside, the darkness waited for us to turn our backs. Without our vigilance, the wilderness would take over. The unknown forests around us were beautiful, but terrifying as well, and full of mystery. 

The natives in the area were not afraid of this world. We became accustomed to the Iroquois and the Mohawk visiting us with their foreign accents and forward manners. We had trouble telling one nationality from another. This made our Mohawk friends laugh. "We have the same trouble with your people," they said. They seemed like friends, but we knew it would be unwise to trust them. 

When the French attacked, we were, by bad luck, outside the fort. We tried to bolt back to safety, the French and Indians on our heels. We were on foot; the soldiers trying to aid our escape. A man fell at my feet and I almost tripped over him. Cora grabbed me, pulling me down as we were almost hit by gunshot. Cora tried to cover my eyes, but I pulled away from her, screaming. I was sure we were about to die.

"Shh," she whispered into my ear. "If they hear you, they will come for us."

So I was silent, shamed to be so vulnerable and afraid. Then it was over almost as fast as it began - the attackers had been driven off or were dead. Major Heyward came to us. "Miss Munro! Miss Alice! Are you harmed?'

The blood on my dress was not mine. It belonged to the soldier at my feet. "We are well," said Cora, with her usual sang-froid, and held me close. I could not stop staring at the dead man at my feet - at the other dead men around me. Had James lain like that? Had George? What a vile war this was.

I reminded myself that we had survived. We were the lucky ones. "You are very brave," said Heyward to us, seriously, and I wondered what choice we had. Did he expect us to swoon, or have hysterics? To run screaming from the carnage? I was trembling from anger as much as fear and shock. We were the daughters of one of the bravest men in England. We would endure whatever we must. We didn't need to like it.

Father sent for us to join him in Fort William Henry, with Major Heyward and his men as our escorts. I'm sure Heyward liked that well enough; it was clear to me that he was infatuated with Cora. Because he was an old friend of the family, Cora tolerated him well enough, but I could not believe she returned his interest. It came as no surprise when she told me he had requested her hand in marriage.

"And you turned him down?" I replied.

"Why would you think that?"

I didn't say it was because I thought him an ass. I said, "Because you seem troubled, not happy. If you were about to marry someone you liked, you would be smiling, don't you think?"

She signed. "I wish it were that easy. I believe him to be a good man, a worthy man. Father would approve. And yet…"

"He bores you?"

That made her smile slightly. "Perhaps."

"I would never marry anyone who bored me."

"The more I think about it," she said, "the more I fear my reasons for wanting to say 'no' are all selfishness."

"Hardly that," I said. "It's your life. Your future. Why throw it away on a man who does not excite you?"

"I wish I saw things as clearly as you do." In truth, I do not see things clearly at all. I am all in a muddle, and in all things but this, Cora is a bastion of clarity.

I was sure I never wanted to marry a soldier, but that was a futile thought, because with the life we lived, how would I ever meet a man who was not a soldier? All the men I knew were in the army, and that was as likely to continue as long as this foul war should last. It showed no sign of ending soon.

Halfway to Fort William Henry, it nearly claimed our lives. We were attacked by a party of savages, Hurons, allies of the French. At first there were gunshots, and something happening at the front of the column. Heyward moved forward, but we could already see the fighting, and soldiers falling, and the screams of men dying and men attacking. My horse bolted, and I fell. I saw our former guide fighting on the other side, betraying us. Cora held me as we lay on the ground, and I buried my face in her dress, waiting for the end. I wish I could have been as brave as my brothers, but I was shaking. So was Cora. 

Heyward, still on his horse, defended us with with pistol, until his horse was shot. He rolled free and used a knife, unable to reload. He pulled his sword. Then others came into the fight - three strangers - I could not guess their origins, or tell whether they were English, French, or savages, but they turned the tide of our small battle. Under their assault, our enemies died or fled. Cora and I rose, light-headed with relief. Heyward took a gun and would have shot one of the strangers, thinking him an enemy, but Cora said, "No, Duncan!" and the first of the strangers took Heyward's gun from him. "In case your aim is as bad as your judgement," he said, amused. What kind of man was this? At least he was not a Frenchmen.

"Your wounded should try walking back to Albany," said the stranger. "They'll never make the passage north." He smacked our horses to scare them off. 

I ran. "No, stop it," I cried. "Stop it! We need them to get out of here!" I reached for the horses' reins, but they were moving faster than I could run, and the third man held me back. 

"Why is he loosing the horses?" demanded Heyward. 

The third man held my arms with amazing but gentle strength. "To easy to track," he said, turning to walk away from me, and I wanted to call him back, though I didn't understand why. I said nothing, in confusion. He was strong and beautiful and terrifying and I had the sense I would follow him anywhere. Was I just lightheaded because he had saved my life? His companions had done no less.

"We were headed to Fort William Henry," said Heyward. Our new companions spoke to each other in a language I did not know, which I later learned was Mohican. 

"We'll take you as far as the fort," said the first man, whose name, I later learned, was Hawkeye, or possibly Nathaniel. "We're walking out of here fast." And they started to do so, but not before taking some items - weapons, tobacco, shot - from the dead. We did not at first move. "Unless you want to meet the next Huron war party," he added.

He was laughing at us, damn him. But we had no choice. And the other man, his friend, his brother, looked at me and I suddenly felt as if I were flying. 

Then they were walking away,and we followed, because we saw no other course. Whoever they were, they could handle themselves in this wilderness as if they were born to it. Which, I later learned, they were. Cora took a pistol for defense as we left our dead and wounded. My heart was beating hard, and not because I was afraid. What had just happened to me?

Nathaniel had seen the Mohawk guide, Magua, almost shoot Cora, deliberately, and asked why he would do that. Heyward did not know. Heyward was not only dull, but a dullard, in my opinion. Not that I knew the answer. I could not imagine Cora insulted or offending anyone, least of all a Mohawk guide. When I saw Cora glance at Nathaniel, I saw something spark in her that made me guess that she did not find Nathaniel dull, not at all. Unsurprising, because he had just saved her life and was doing so again - we could not have survived in the woods without him and his companions, or have found our way back.

I too was thankful to Nathaniel for saving us and, in particular, for saving Cora. But it was the other I found myself looking at, not the older man, but the younger. Uncas, I learned his name was. Uncas, last prince of the Mohican tribe.

I dropped my eyes when he looked at me. Then I looked quickly back, but he was looking away, so I could look at him as greedily as I wished. Tall, handsome, strong. A savage, yes, but I was seeing savages in a whole new light, not just as foreigners, not as men who were my equal, but as heroes of the forest who were in so many ways my superior - the Noble Savage as spoken of by the philosophers. I could sew and cook and read French - well, read a little French - but this man was at home in the wilderness, an achievement far greater than any of mine..

Bit by bit, we learned their story. Hawkeye was not born Mohican, but had been adopted when young as a son by Chingachgook, the Mohican chief, who sent him and his other son, Uncas, for schooling in English. These men were at home in two cultures… How I admired and envied them. I felt weak, foolish, shallow. I had lived in a dream world and they lived in the real one.

When Uncas looked at me, I was ashamed because I was not worthy of his regard, but happy, too, because I wanted him to look at me forever. Was this insanity? Was this love? If love, how had it stricken me, between one breath and another, with other things on my mind? I tried to study every detail of his features and form, his clothes, his shoes, his earrings, the gold bands around his wrist. 

Hawkeye made it clear he had no interest in us or our wars, but when he glanced at Cora I thought maybe he had an interest in her. He annoyed Heyward with his lack of concern about the war, but Heyward had annoyed him by treating him like a colonial scout when he was not such and had no desire to be so. Or was something else going on here? The brittle annoyance of one male animal jealous of another male animal who might he interested in the female animal beside them? If this were the case, were either of them fully aware of it? Heyward might be, were he not blind. By the time we had walked ten miles, I had no doubt of Cora's feelings on the matter. Perhaps not consciously, not deliberately, but with utter certainty, she had made a choice. She would not choose to marry Major Heyward now. She knew what she wanted - who she wanted - and the Major was out of luck.

As to what Uncas knew or thought, I had no idea. His English was as good as mine, but he used it seldom. He said little, and when he spoke, it was to Hawkeye or his father, in his own language. I longed to learn it. It was as exotic and melodious as that of the Hindu rajas I had once dreamed of.

We saw the ruined home where the Cameron family had been killed by a war party, where Hawkeye would not let us bury the dead because then the war party would know we were there. We were almost seen by French-speaking warriors, in the dark, but they passed by without discovering us. 

I felt an odd combination of fear and confidence. We were in danger, yes. But Uncas was near me, and made me feel safe.

In the dark of the night, I could not sleep. Every rustle of a bird or animal disturbed me, every touch of the chill wind - but that was not what kept me wakeful. I continued to think about Uncas. He had helped me along the way, but so had Major Heyward and Chingachgook. He must have been paying attention, though, for when he saw me move, he said, "Miss Alice?"

I looked down, and he wrapped something light and warm over me. His shirt. I said, "You don't need to -"

"I am not cold," he said.

The phrase was enticingly ambiguous. I said, "Thank you for helping us."

"I would want to help you," he replied, "Even if it were not the right thing to do. This war, this violence, it is not your place to be part of it. We will take you to your father, where you will be safe."

"Safe?" I said ironically, and his reply held a smile in it. 

"As safe as possible."

"Under the circumstances," I said.

"Under the circumstances," he agreed.

":And then?"

"What do you mean?"

"You leave me at Fort William Henry with my father. What then? You go away to Kentucky? I never see you again?"

There was a pause. "That would be unfortunate," he said.

I could not quite see his face in the darkness, but I tried. "I've always wanted to go to Kentucky," I said. This was not true. I had never given Kentucky a thought in the whole of my life. It was the boldest thing I had ever said. The most brazen lie. The bravest.

Then he moved his hand, and touched mine. Just a feather touch, just for a moment. "I cannot speak for the future," he said. "Yours or mine. But I swear I will do what I can to protect you, and to take you wherever you may want to be. My life is yours."

Tears ran down my cheeks, and I turned to him, put my forehead to his bare shoulder. He put an arm around me. "Whatever happens to either of us," I said, "I am yours, in this life or beyond."

"So be it," he said.

We sat in silence then. I was warmed by his touch, and he, I think, by mine. We could not control what was to come. My father would not allow me to run away to Kentucky with a heathen savage, and he would not understand that the Mohican Uncas was the most civilized man I had met. I would have to leave without my father's blessing. Would I have to leave Cora as well? She might go with Hawkeye to Kentucky, where the wilderness would become our home. We could remain a family. We would be truly happy, and our children would be double cousins.

I wrapped myself in thoughts of hope warmed by them as much as by my beloved's shirt. For the first time in my life, I could imagine a future that I longed for. With joy in my heart, I relaxed in his arms, and let sleep take me.

~


End file.
